Civic Engagement and Community Information: Five Strategies to Revive Civic Communication

This report calls on community and elected leaders to adopt sensible strategies to strengthen civic communication and citizen engagement. The strategies posed in the report include reforming existing federal, state, and local programs and institutions that could make significant contributions to the information environment and health of local communities through a Civic Information Corps; engaging young people in building the information and communication capacity of their communities; realigning incentives in higher education to turn these institutions into local information hubs; investing in public deliberations; and mapping the civic networks that exist in communities. The report also mentions existing service-learning programs that relate to the author's proposed strategies.